Justice in Plato's Republic

Préface
Offering an in-depth commentary on Plato's Republic Book 1, Weiss's book explores its many insights concerning justice.

Auteur
Roslyn Weiss is Professor Emerita of Philosophy at Lehigh University. She is the author of Socrates Dissatisfied: An Analysis of Plato's 'Crito' (1998); Virtue in the Cave: Moral Inquiry in Plato's 'Meno' (2001); The Socratic Paradox and Its Enemies (2006); and Philosophers in the 'Republic': Plato's Two Paradigms (2012).

Texte du rabat

Though it is thought that for Plato in the Republic justice is internal, a matter of relations among the parts of a city or soul, this book contends that in Book 1, justice - both political and personal - is external and other-regarding.

Résumé
In Book 4 of Plato's Republic, Socrates introduces what is regarded by scholars as the Platonic account of justice, according to which it is an essentially internal and self-regarding, a matter of relations among the parts of a city or soul. In this book, Roslyn Weiss contends that there is another notion of justice, as other-regarding and external, which is to be found in a series of conversations in Book 1 between Socrates and three successive interlocutors. Weiss considers the relationship between justice as conceived in Book 1 and Book 4, and carefully examines what can be learned from each of the arguments. Her close analysis of Book 1 brings to light what Socrates really believed about justice, and extracts and explores this Book's many insights concerning justice-at both the political and the personal level.

Contenu

1. Appreciating republic 1; 2. Cephalus: just-in time; 3. Polemarchus: friends and enemies; 4. Thrasymachus on 'the just'; 5. No one rules willingly; 6. The better man, the better life; 7. Justice springs internal.